Anti-Trump ďconservativesĒ act as if they are the only group of people who have ever faced having a nominee of their party that they donít like and donít believe represents their party well, but Iíve got news for them. They arenít. A lot of conservatives werenít satisfied with Romney, McCain, Bush II, Dole, Bush I, etc. Guess what, Bernie supporters arenít happy with Hillary and many leftists before werenít happy with Kerry, etc. either, but the level of vitriol and the pathological inability to let it go and move on among the NeverTrumpers is unprecedented. (Iíll only use the quotes around conservative once for the sake of ease and appearance, but I do not concede that every group calling itself conservative actually is when that term is properly understood and applied.)

I find a few things about the anti-Trump hysteria among some conservative regulars very revealing. First, how many of these conservatives also refused in the name of conservative purity to back the squishy moderates Romney and McCain after they won the Republican nomination? Very few I suspect. Props to those who did. Heck, many NeverTrumpers laughably view Romney as the potential savior of conservatism and the Republican Party. I could stop this essay at that little factoid and would have sufficiently demonstrated the intellectual unseriousness of NeverTrump, but Iíll proceed anyway. Skewering NeverTrump is too much fun. The opposition to Trump among NeverTrumpers is not motivated by degree, so to speak, of conservatism, but by kind of conservatism. Trump represents another possible manifestation of the conservative impulse, and that is why they fear him.

Also, how many of these oh so pure conservatives, especially the ones who call themselves constitutional conservatives, supported a genuine constitutionalist, Ron Paul, in 2008 and 2012? Ron Paul is philosophically a libertarian which is potentially problematic from an authentic conservative standpoint, but the political manifestation of his libertarianism was strict constitutionalism which is entirely conservative in effect, and Paul had long been a product of the American right-wing scene. But many of the same people who are hysterical about Trump because he breaks the movement conservative mold, were equally hysterical about Ron Paul for the same reason, although Paul broke the mold in a different way.

But the most telling indication of the real nature of NeverTrump in my opinion, is its steadfast refusal to do the most logical and sensible thing if it really believes that the problem with Trump is that he is not conservative enough, endorse the nominee of the most prominent ďmoreĒ conservative party with a national presence, the Constitution Party (CP). This is what people who are unwilling to accept the nominee of their chosen party do when they feel their nominee is not pure enough, they vote for the candidate of the ideological third party that is closest to them or an independent if available. So if a Bernie supporter canít support Hillary because he doesnít think she is liberal enough, he might vote for the Green Party nominee, Jill Stein, because the Green Party is the most prominent national ďmoreĒ liberal by degree party. In past elections he might have voted for Ralph Nader, for example.

Likewise, if you are a conservative truly interested in the purity of conservatism, and you believe that Trump falls short of your threshold for what you can support, then why not do the logical thing and support the Constitution Party nominee, Darrell Castle? But shockingly few NeverTrumpers have seen fit to do so. Why?